Stormy Weather, the Continuing Mouse Hacienda Holocaust, and Catch-up Posts...

As the Northeast continues to be soaked with the longest rainstorm in recent memory, it's been catch-as-catch-can for me to get onto/into the blog. My server, Sovernet, is based in Bellows Falls, VT, which may account for the difficulties I've had logging on -- just across the swollen Connecticut River in Walpole, NH, there's been some major damage due to the storm (including a bridge out), with Alstead NH suffering the most devastating of all. The latter has impacted on Marj's job to the point where she's been off all week -- the school system shut down completely for the entire district. With the escalation in rain predicted for the weekend (5 inches or more -- a little less than last weekend, but the ground is super-saturated without a break in the shift from sprinkling to heavy rain for over a week), more dire consequences are likely. Still, I'll post as I can; we're fine living up here on the Mountain of Madness, save for the ongoing rodent invasion.

Since my 'Rodent Atrocity' post earlier this week, I've snapped no less than a half-dozen more of the Cinderella bed-sharers (remember the Disney feature?). Last night's haul included a hefty mouse damn-near rat proportions, and with the noise between the walls we've had all week plaguing us not at all this morning, I reckon we might have finally bagged the matriarch or patriarch of the in-wall habitation. Still, the traps are already set for tonight, as the dreary weather continues and the critters continue to seek warm shelter. Can't blame 'em, but as my pal Dave Booz already posted, I gotta do what I gotta do.

Whether the week+ of wet weather might be considered either Biblical or Bradburyian in nature (depending on your personal orientation to these sorts of things), it is worth noting that precisely 51 years ago this week Alfred Hitchcock, his cast (including Shirley MacLaine in her debut feature film -- though Artists and Models hit theaters first), and his crew were struggling with identical weather in upstate Vermont. Hitch had chosen the region betwixt the Stowe/Morrisville area (where they all boarded) and scenic Craftsbury Common (where many of the narrative exteriors were filmed) as the ideal setting for his black comedy The Trouble With Harry, savoring the offset of the classical autumn foliage against the film's macabre murder and moveable burial/feast centerpiece -- but the damned inclimate weather shot their shooting schedule to pieces. The same leaf-stripping rains and winds we're now enduring struck, eventually sending director, cast and crew packing for the Paramount sound stages in Hollywood while fallen fall colors were carefully scooped up, crated, and shipped to California to be woven into the faux exterior sets.

With heating fuel of all kinds (including wood, which is now available primarily green at record high prices) breaking the bank for almost everyone up here, and the ongoing extremities of weather having us all preparing for the worst, the economic impact of this sour weather is sobering. Most businesses up here depend on the tourist dollars the fall colors bring; the triple whammy of soaring gas prices, ravaged post-Katrina economy belt-tightening all the way around, and this enduring storm knocking this key foliage season's dick into the dirt is further darkening an already-dire winter for everyone hereabouts. Brrrrrr...